UK bomb maker sentenced to life for killing US soldier

LONDON (AP) — A British man was sentenced Friday to life in prison for making a roadside bomb that killed a U.S. soldier in Iraq in 2007.

Anis Abid Sardar, 38, was accused of assembling bombs in Syria that were planted on the western outskirts of Baghdad that year. One of the devices killed Sgt. 1st Class Randy Johnson, 34, of 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment. Johnson, from Washington, D.C., died after his armored vehicle struck a bomb on Sept. 27, 2007. Four other soldiers were injured.

He was arrested years later after FBI investigators found his fingerprints on some of the devices. Prosecutors said he was a "highly dangerous man" working with "murderous intent against coalition forces."

Sardar, a former London taxi driver, was believed to be the first person to be convicted in a British court for fighting in the Iraqi insurgency.

He was convicted Thursday of murder and conspiracy to murder. He had denied all the charges against him, and told the court he became involved in the Iraqi insurgency to protect his fellow Sunni Muslims from Shia militias. He said American soldiers had not been his targets.

But Justice Henry Globe dismissed that and said Sardar had "a mindset that made Americans every bit the enemy as Shia militias."